The row between the National Board for Technical Education and the National Universities Commission over the proposed top-up degree scheme for HND holders deepened on Monday.
The NBTE, in a statement on Monday by its spokesman, Fatima Abubakar, said the scheme was “beyond the jurisdiction of the National Universities Commission,” and asked the commission to stay out of it.
Our correspondent has earlier reported that the NUC, in a strongly worded statement, asked the NBTE to suspend action on the planned top-up degree for HND holders.
In the statement, the NUC’s acting Executive Secretary, Chris Maiyaki, accused the NBTE of acting beyond its mandate with the proposed top-up scheme and asked it to drop the “top-up scheme being concocted.”
Maiyaki insisted the NUC reserves the power to prescribe the minimum academic standards as well as accredit universities and their programmes .
Earlier, this newspaper had reported that the NBTE through its head, Prof. Idris Bugaje, announced a partnership with foreign universities where HND graduates could convert their diplomas to degrees through a one-year conversion course, to address the dichotomy that has continued to exist between graduates of universities and polytechnics.
According to Bugaje, HND holders who choose to pursue an academic career, at the moment, have no progression path except through the Postgraduate Diploma and anytime they wish to switch to universities as lecturers after their Ph.D., they are always queried to produce their first degree.
